Turkey's Parliament ratifies Finland's entry into NATO

MADRID, 30 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Turkish Parliament ratified Finland's accession protocol to the Atlantic Alliance late Thursday night, with which Helsinki already has the approval of all NATO allies.

After an intense session in the Turkish Grand National Assembly that lasted for hours, well into the night, Turkish parliamentarians have given the 'green light' for Finland to join NATO, Anadolu news agency reported.

With this vote and following similar steps taken at the beginning of the week by the Hungarian Parliament, Finland has already received the favorable vote of all the member states of the Atlantic Alliance, which places the Scandinavian country on the brink of joining the bloc.

Once all the members of the Alliance and the candidates have approved the accession protocols, the approved documents must be sent to the United States, where they are deposited with the Government. The applicant country only becomes a member of NATO when Washington has all the documents.

Finland and its neighbor Sweden jointly requested their entry into NATO in May, an entry that the Atlantic Alliance was betting would be 'express' and ready for the Madrid summit. However, Turkish reluctance due to the alleged collusion of the Swedes and Finns with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the People's Protection Units (YPG) frustrated immediate processing.

That summit of NATO leaders in Madrid helped the Swedish, Finnish and Turkish leaders reach a three-way agreement in which the Scandinavians promised to cooperate in the fight against terrorism in exchange for Ankara unlocking the path to your accession.

Turkey ended up appreciating the steps taken by Finland and committing to put its NATO membership to a vote, but not Sweden's, which it considers has not complied with its commitments. In addition, a series of protests in Stockholm against Erdogan and Islam further heated the situation in early February.

In this context, and although Finland initially planned to join the Atlantic Alliance hand in hand with its neighbor and main ally, in the end it did not look badly on advancing alone on its way to the bloc due to the stagnation of the Swedish case.

The capital of Belgium, Brussels, hosts next week a new summit of foreign ministers of the Member States of the Atlantic Alliance to which Finland could attend as the 31st member of the bloc.